Domestic steel producers have filed new anti-dumping petitions against eight countries, charging them with unfairly subsidizing steel exports into the US. Also, the Senate Energy Committee has advanced a bill that would lift the 40-year US oil export ban but it faces a tough road with the full Senate.

Domestic Producers File New Steel Anti-Dumping Cases

AK Steel Corp., ArcelorMittal USA LLC, Nucor Corp., Steel Dynamics, Inc., and U.S. Steel Corp. filed petitions recently with the Department of Commerce and the US International Trade Commission charging that unfairly-traded imports of cold-rolled steel flat products from Brazil, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Netherlands, Russia and the United Kingdom are causing material injury to the domestic industry.

The petitions allege that producers in each of the eight countries are dumping cold-rolled steel in the US market at substantial margins, all above 42% government subsidy.

Bill to Lift US Oil Export Ban Advances

The US Senate Energy Committee on Thursday narrowly passed a bill to lift a 40-year-old ban on the export of crude oil, but the measure faces an uphill battle in getting passed by the full Senate, Reuters reported. The bill would allow the US to export oil and boost state revenue-sharing for offshore oil and gas drilling. It passed along party lines by a vote of 12-10.

I won’t try and justify this by the metal content — which is interesting in its own right — or by the turn of fortunes that has been created by taking an old repair shop for cargo ships and turning into a new industrial enterprise, admirable as that is, no this posts stands on its own two mechanical feet as pure fun.

The robot constructors of the American entry are three engineers who basically wanted to live out their childhood fantasies and build a fighting robot. Weighing in at 12,000 lbs. and measuring some 15-ft. tall the MegaBot MKII is everything a child could imagine and more.

MegaBot MKII. Image courtesy of MegaBot.

The backers have found a worthy opponent in Japan’s Suidobashi Heavy Industries Kuratas, against whom they can wage war. [click to continue…]